project<\/a> that began early in the year to remove the toll plazas east of Reading and on the Northeast Extension as part of its open-road tolling system. The project eliminates traditional tollbooths in favor of overhead electronic gantries.<\/p>\nTolls are charged electronically as travelers drive at highway speeds without slowing down or stopping. Toll plazas have been replaced by overhead structures \u2014 called gantries \u2014 located between interchanges on the highway. As drivers pass beneath the structures, equipment on the gantry and in the road processes E-ZPass\u202for Toll By\u202fPlate transactions, officials said.<\/p>\n
This system reduces confusion and lane switching associated with traditional, stop-and-go tolling, they said.<\/p>\n
Crispin Havener, a turnpike spokesman, said the demolition at Morgantown began last month, slightly sooner that expected.<\/p>\n
The project started with the Pocono interchange (Exit 95) on the Northeast Extension (Interstate 476), with contractors removing the tollbooths and canopy from the interchange and reconstruction of the interchange.<\/p>\n
The work involves short-term lane closures to allow for drilling and crane operations related to the supports for the gantry as well as placing the structure on the supports.<\/p>\n
The overall project, which includes the Downingtown interchange, is scheduled to be completed in 2026.<\/p>\n
Each interchange will be reconstructed to provide unobstructed traffic flow, officials said.<\/p>\n
Officials said open-road tolling launched on the eastern section in January. The system will launch on the mainline western section \u2014from the Reading interchange (Route 222) in Lancaster County to the Ohio line \u2014 in 2027, with tollbooths at those interchanges to be removed by the end of 2028.<\/p>\n
This will result in a $25 million yearly savings in interchange maintenance and operations costs and $50 million in yearly operational savings versus traditional collection methods, they said.<\/p>\n
During demolitions, state police and turnpike personnel will be positioned to assist drivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demolition of the toll plaza has begun at the Pennsylvania Turnpike Morgantown interchange. The work in Caernarvon Township…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,3802,182,139,28,128,130,129,1015],"class_list":{"0":"post-5614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-caernarvon-township","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-reading-city","14":"tag-reading-city-headlines","15":"tag-reading-city-news","16":"tag-top-stories-mer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}